Nightengale
by Miiko Ashida
Summary: Soul is a down-on-his luck prostitute; Maka's a high-class escort working for the same pimp. They meet and are drawn into a whirlwind struggle to make something like a decent life for themselves - a life in which they can choose who to love.  SoMa


**author's note: **this is an AU which deals with prostitution in a gritty, somewhat realistic way. in other words, KIDDIES GO HOME :| there will be sex, drug use, and violence (some of it sexual). if any of that upsets you, now would be a good time to make use of your back button. to everyone else, thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy the ride!

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><p><strong>chapter one: a run of bad luck<strong>

"Yo! Soul!"

Even dog-tired as he was from walking the same four blocks up and down for five hours, Soul recognized the foghorn-loud voice of his best friend, who was approaching at an easy jog. His head snapped up and he managed to plaster on a beleaguered grin. "What's up?"

They bumped knuckles and traded an intricate handshake as Black Star slowed to a stop. "Nothing much. I was heading home from the set and realized your area was on the way, so I thought I'd stop by, see what you were up to."

"Not fuckin' much," Soul informed him flatly. It was true. The night had been deader than the girl they'd pulled out of a trashcan at 17th and Harrison last week.

Garishly dyed blue eyebrows jumped. "That's weird. You usually pull 'em in by this time of night."

Soul gave a shrug. "It's an off-night, I guess. I'm thinkin' of heading back if nothing turns up in half an hour. Magic stroke of midnight, and all that."

Black Star just stared at him blankly.

"Never mind." Sometimes Soul forgot that Black Star had had a pretty shitty childhood, compared to Soul's relatively normal one. His parents had probably been too blasted most of the time to read to him, so of course he didn't know about shit like Cinderella. It didn't really embarrass him, the fact that his family was poor white trash who had regarded him as just another annoying mouth to feed, but Soul didn't want to let the conversation hang up on something stupid like a cultural reference his friend had missed. As far as Black Star was concerned, 'culture' expanded to cover good food and martial arts. And, hey, who was Soul to knock those things? He liked music and classic movies, but what Black Star was into were pretty legitimate disciplines in their own way. Food, at least, anyway.

Black Star barely seemed to have noticed the awkward stumble in their banter. The stocky young man flopped back against the wall, digging his hands into his pockets. He grinned over at Soul. "Hey, I've got a gig coming up, we could use an extra body. You interested? You, me, three other cocks?" As with ninety percent of the things Black Star said, he punctuated this with a suggestive waggle of his eyebrows. Soul blanched.

"You've gotta be shitting me. I pulled an all-nighter yesterday - I don't wanna see another penis for a _month_."

Black Star laughed uproariously. "Yeah, let me know how that turns out for you! Hanging out down here, you'll end up seeing more than one."

"If I had a choice, I wouldn't be down here tonight," the younger man grumbled, rubbing absently at his lower back.

"You'd totally take a wad of cash to have sex with me, admit it! I'm a god in bed and you know it. That's like getting paid to have some hot chick give you a massage!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Seriously, though, man, I'm not up for it," scowled Soul. "The last guy was kinda rough."

"Bummer." With a sympathetic bob of his head, Black Star dug a cigarette out of his jacket and held it out toward Soul. "Smoke?"

Soul gave him a funny look. "Thought you didn't do that shit, man. Bad for your health and all that." Black Star was a notorious health-and-fitness freak - his muscles made him look the part of a ripped, sexy guy in his videos, for sure, but he liked to go the extra mile; he really walked the walk. Protein shakes and organic vegetables and soy-whatever-the-fuck and all that shit. How he paid for it, Soul didn't know, but the guy must be making a hell of a lot more than _he_ was.

"Nah, I don't. But you do, so." Black Star shot Soul a crooked grin.

Soul couldn't help but smile. Even if the work itself was pretty shitty basically all the time, he had a good friend in his outgoing coworker. They were probably about as tight as two guys could be without it getting weird. Casually, Soul bumped the other boy's knuckles as he took the cigarette, lighting it with the mangled stub of a match he found in his own pocket.

They had a good rapport. _In synch_. It was pretty cool. Almost worth it, even.

"Kid's gonna bust my balls when I come back empty-handed," he sighed through the new cloud of smoke haloing around his head.

Black Star's eyeroll was so exaggerated it was audible. "That priss isn't gonna give you more than a vicious tongue-lashing.

"And I'll be down on the docks for a week if I blow this gig. Man, I hate those motherfuckers."

Dock workers. Black Star knew all about that - he'd started out as what Soul was now, a low-rent rentboy, but he was shit at it because of his foul mouth and angry, defiant attitude. Johns didn't get off on being told their shit was sick and they should just suck their own dicks. Fortunately, a loud mouth and a hard body had landed him the marginally cushier gig of making _movies_, though he still pulled a couple of nights a month working the streets with Soul. But guys who liked to hurt you, that was fucked up. He knew it was sort of an unavoidable pitfall of the job, but it made him sick to see his best friend come around with a split lip or a black eye or a really fucking bad limp, looking sullen and for all the world like someone had beat the fight out of him. They never did, of course - Soul was a big personality, like Black Star, and hell if some violent assholes from the docks were gonna change that - not in the long run. Still, it chipped away at even the baddest of guys, which was why Black Star had jumped at his first opportunity to move onward and upward.

Maybe it was because of his weird looks - a lot of people thought the white-haired kid with his blood-red eyes was an albino, or else that there was something _wrong_ with him, like a disease or something - or maybe just because he'd never pursued it, but Soul hadn't been offered any such opportunities; for whatever reason, the boss had pegged him as a hooker and so a hooker he would probably stay for the rest of his career.

"Need me to loan you some cash?" Black Star asked, knowing Soul despised pity but hoping he'd see it as a favor between two bros. "It'll look legit when your numbers come up for review."

"Nah," replied the other boy, predictably. He scuffed his shoes against the pavement. "I'll take my chances with Kid. It's not like he ever does anything worse than tell me my disgraceful, _asymmetrical_ clothes are the reason nobody picks me up. Tch. What a priss," he echoed Black Star's earlier assessment, laughing a little at how silly the word sounded coming out of either of them. Two hard, tough kids who knew their way around the back streets, calling somebody a 'priss'. It was great.

Abruptly, Black Star vaulted himself away from the wall and tossed the remnants of the pack of cigarettes to Soul. "Listen, I gotta head home, but you let me know if you change your mind about that job, okay? Offer expires next Friday."

"Not likely, man, but thanks anyway," replied the snowy-haired boy with a casual wave. He looked up just enough from the slouch he'd adopted to watch Black Star's footsteps disappearing down the street and into the pools of shadow between streetlights and storefronts.

* * *

><p>The overstuffed office chair propped Soul's back up in all the wrong ways. He shifted around on its seat uncomfortably, feeling like he was rubbing dirt all over everything just by existing in the immaculately clean room. All of the surfaces were white or black, but there was overwhelmingly more of the white than the black. Who exactly did Kid and the boss think they'd be entertaining in here, anyway?<p>

Nobody who could afford regular access to a shower that worked consistently, that was for sure.

The suit-clad son of Soul's boss was speaking, his tone the consistency of cream, smooth and flowing over well-ordered but aggravated words. Somehow he managed to sound both mannerly and irritable at the same time.

"This is really, deeply unsatisfactory, Soul Evans," Kid purred, flipping through the sheets of paper in his hands, one direction and then back again. A frown creased his fine-boned features at what he saw printed there. "At this rate you will actually become further in debt, rather than paying anything off."

"However," he went on, tapping both of his matching canes against the floor impatiently, "if I were to attempt to punish you by assigning you to worse areas, there would be even less chance of recovering your losses, which would be...counterproductive." The young bookkeeper-cum-pimp smiled unpleasantly. His incisors flashed. "And, fortunately for you, there is someone new here whose clientele is slated as even sparser and cheaper than yours. So, you'll retain your spot on Monroe east of the train station for next week, at least."

Kid shuffled the papers loudly, tapping them against the desk until their edges all lined up neatly. A few moments passed, and then he glanced up at Soul, raising one immaculately trimmed eyebrow. "You're still here."

"Uh...that's it? We're done?" Soul couldn't believe it. Usually he got a verbal reaming from the young man across the desk, but today he was being let off without even a wrist-slap without any real reason at all.

"We're finished, yes," said Kid primly. "You can let my next appointment know he may come in."

Relieved, Soul scraped his chair back, which elicited a wince and disapproving glare from his pimp, and slouched out into the small foyer that served as a waiting room for Kid's office. It wasn't hard to spot the next appointment - there were only two other people in the room, both sitting together.

One was a young man - or was it a girl? Soul couldn't tell, and thought maybe that was the point - wearing a long, plain black dress that clung to his body awkwardly. Atop his head was a tacky bubblegum-pink wig that hadn't been taken care of. Upon a closer look, Soul realized the 'wig' was actually the guy's _hair_. Talk about nasty; he didn't seem to have showered in a while, or eaten, judging by the way his bones jutted out everywhere, even through the dress. The strange-looking boy was accompanied by a curvy, blonde woman who looked right for the part of one of Lord Death's employees, herself, though Soul could tell from the way she carried herself that she was not. Her slinky black dress dipped ridiculously low in the front, and she had crossed her legs in such a way as to maximize exposure of her pale thighs. A tattoo that looked rather tribal snaked up one arm from wrist to shoulder, covered at various points by gaudy gold bangles. Kid had said "he", but Soul had to wonder which of these people was supposed to be the appointment. Nevertheless, her eyes were sharp and steely, and she held her head with an air of superiority not common to streetwalkers.

"You're up." Soul jerked his chin at the door as he passed the seated pair, doing his best to look uninterested.

Most people would say thanks, or make some sort of acknowledgement, but the kid just unfolded slowly to his feet, waiting for the woman to stand as well. Then they headed toward the office, still wordlessly. Soul scoffed under his breath. Lord Death was employing shabbier and stranger weirdos every day, yet somehow _he_ was still at the bottom of the heap.

* * *

><p>"So how'd it go with Kid?"<p>

On his rare nights off, Soul usually went over to Black Star's place, since it was a lot nicer and marginally cleaner than his own rathole of an apartment. Tonight was no exception. The Western Athletic Conference semifinals were playing on the TV, though neither of them was paying it much attention. Black Star had his hand down the front of Soul's jeans, giving him slow, firm strokes and kissing his friend's neck.

"Good, I guess. I mean, he didn't threaten to have me sold for my organs this time, at least."

Black Star chuckled, the low sound reverberating along Soul's jaw and making him shiver a little. "Ha! You're moving up in life."

"Ugh, Utah just scored," Soul groaned, catching the fatal three-point shot during one of the moments his eyes wandered back to the screen. There was a choked noise from Black Star, who managed to tear his face away from the hickey he was leaving on Soul's collarbone long enough to check the scoreboard.

"Mother_fucker_!" he shouted loudly into the other boy's ear. "You bastards! Learn to play defense!"

Unlike Soul, Black Star got extremely passionate about sports losses; he had been known to flip furniture over or, on rare occasion - like the conference championships last year - throw it out of windows. That had been a memorable party. Soul was unable to suppress a chuckle at the memory, and Black Star scowled at him. To the blue-haired Alabaman, sports was religion.

"It ain't funny," he grumbled, but the affront was forgotten almost as soon as it came up. Soul's lips were still quirked with laughter, and Black Star leaned over to kiss them, nudging his friend's mouth open insistently.

The sound of the buzzer was barely audible over the breath rushing between them.

"Overtime," Soul mumbled absently, expecting Black Star to cut their makeout session off to watch the last few neck-and-neck minutes of the game; instead, the older boy shifted to straddle Soul's lap, renewing his attention to his friend's dick.

Somehow, even though he really was tired as fuck of sex and especially _guys_ and all that went along with it, Soul found himself thinking about how nice it was to do this sort of thing with someone he actually knew and cared about every once in awhile. It might not have been romantic, because shit, Black Star was his brother in all but blood and he'd sure as hell never ask the guy out on a date or want to hold hands with him in the park or whatever, but it wasn't creepy like the businessmen who paid twenty bucks a pop to lean over Soul, drooling and leering, while he touched himself. Black Star was human contact with care, but without strings. Everyone else wanted to pay for a warm body under them for the night, nothing more and nothing less. Attachments in his line of work tended to be brief, messy, and complicated, and Black Star was the only one who was none of those things.

The game ended 89-93 Utah, and Soul came shuddering over his best friend's hand with a feeling somewhere between relief and despair.

* * *

><p>The john wasn't unattractive, but he wasn't Soul's type at all. Or rather, he wouldn't have been Soul's type if Soul liked dudes, if Soul were allowed to have a 'type', if Soul were allowed to have any kind of say in this at all. He was clean-cut and handsome, in a square-jawed sort of way, with slicked-back hair that sort of screamed "rich douchebag" or maybe "gym maniac". Soul could imagine he had some yuppie lady at home waiting for him in yoga sweats that had gotten just a little too tight since they'd had their first kid, and this guy was losing interest, so here he was.<p>

The only real question was, why_ Soul_? This guy didn't give off the likes-little-boys vibe at all, but he was easily twenty years older than the prostitute, in his mid thirties or so. He could've found someone closer to his own age, no trouble. He could probably have found a chick, for that matter.

The affairs of married men didn't bother Soul much, but he just got a weird read off of this one. However, none of that mattered as long as he got paid - fatly - at the end of the night. And this guy was going to pay twice the usual rate, as long as Soul was down for some "kinky shit". Fuck, Soul would have been down for just about anything short of getting shit on or cut up, if it meant he could cover some of last week's losses.

"Go run a bath," the guy said, not smiling at all, the same poker face he'd had on since he had approached Soul out on the street and asked if he was open for a date. "But run it cold. Get in, I'll be in in a minute."

_The fuck?_ Soul thought, but hell if he was going to argue and fuck up his chances.

He ran the water a little colder than lukewarm, because he wasn't really sure how he was supposed to perform his duties if his dick had frostbite and his balls had shriveled up like raisins, but then again, maybe this guy was one of those who just wanted a pliant hole to fuck. There were a lot of those types out there, really. When the tub had filled, he settled into it slowly, hissing at the temperature of the water when it bit at his skin. He lay there for a good ten minutes or so, wondering what the fuck the john was getting up to out in the main sleeping portion of the room, and whether he was ever going to come in at all, before the door cracked open. His client came over to the tub, dipped a hand in the water, and shook his head with an expression verging on anger.

"This isn't cold enough," he muttered. He wiped his hand off on one of the hotel's plush bath towels and backed up to the door. "I'm gonna go get some ice. You stay put, got it?"

"Yes sir," replied Soul in his best imitation of meek obedience. By now he had figured from the way the guy talked that he got off on being in charge, and that was fine with Soul. Black Star would have been flipping his shit and talking back, or else storming out, but the money mattered to Soul a lot more than any tattered shreds of pride he might still be holding onto.

The john returned a few minutes later, carrying two pails of ice, which he dumped into the water. Then Soul was left alone in the tub again for another fifteen minutes. He could feel his teeth beginning to chatter, and was pretty sure his lips were turning blue, but he stayed put. Finally his client came back in, now dressed in just a bathrobe.

"Get up," he ordered, "and lie on the floor."

This shit was getting weirder and weirder. "We're not gonna do it in the tub?" asked Soul, who had figured the guy must have a thing for temperature play or something.

The man didn't look interested in entertaining questions or protests. "Just get on the floor, and don't talk or move."

Oh.

Everything connected at once, and Soul suddenly wanted to heave up the meager dinner he'd eaten. This guy wanted to pretend he was a _corpse_. No, that was not fucking cool - that was way outside the realm of weirdness that Soul was willing to do.

"No way, dude. Sorry, but that's too freaky. Tell you what, let's just both cut our lost time for tonight, and -"

The john's knuckles connected with his jaw completely unexpectedly, and Soul, who didn't have anything to brace himself on in the wet, slippery tub, slid backward with a splash. His head knocked against the faucet and he saw stars, gritting his teeth.

"What the _fuck_!" he snarled, smearing a wet hand across his face to check if he was bleeding. While he was still reeling from the shock, the john lunged forward and wrapped his large hands around Soul's neck, which he squeezed like a tube of paint. Soul coughed and gasped, scrabbling with wet hands at the guy's beefy arms, and cursed himself for being so fucking _stupid._ He tried to land a punch to free himself, or pry the man's fingers off of his neck, but the other man was an adult - and a big one, at that - and Soul was just a scrawny, underfed street kid, no matter how tough he might be. The man's fingers barely even budged. Black crept in at the edges of Soul's vision. Then he was out.

When he woke, Soul was lying face-down on the tile floor, with a pounding pain in both the back of his head and his ass.

"Fuck," he croaked quietly. He had to fight back the childish urge to cry. It wasn't the first time something like this had happened, but he felt like an idiot, not to mention pathetic for not being able to fight back. And on top of everything, he hadn't even gotten his fucking pay.

_I should have just gone along with it_, he thought miserably, turning himself over with halting, ginger motions. _At least then I wouldn't be walking out of here empty-handed._ The dingy ceiling stared back at him blankly without advice or sympathy. He still felt the lump of tears at the back of his throat, burning painfully, but he didn't think he was in danger of bursting out sobbing anymore. The tears weren't from being a pussy, he told himself, just because he was so fucking angry. Soul took a few deep breaths, rubbed his hands over his face, and tried to make himself calm down. It was a long time before he could muster the energy to get up, limp into the adjoining bedroom, and dig out his cellphone to call Black Star.

* * *

><p>"Most of the time I can't shake the impression that you are much more trouble than you're worth," Kid hissed quietly. Soul stood beside him, dressed in his nicest button-down shirt and the only pair of slacks he owned, feeling nervous and out of place. "If your actions reflect poorly upon me in my father's eyes -"<p>

The tall oak door they'd been waiting in front of swung slowly open, and Kid's lecture stopped immediately. He nodded briskly to Soul and pressed him forward, through the doorway, with one hand covered in elaborate rings.

"Don't speak unless spoken to!" he reminded Soul in a furious whisper, "And for god's sake, don't mouth off, for once!"

Soul had no intention of doing that. He had only met Lord Death twice before, when he had first come here and then again when he got into a fight with a john, but his admittedly foggy impression of the man was that of a kindly uncle who told inane jokes and doted on his nieces and nephews. Something about the chief pimp struck Soul as inherently _fair_ - or rather, evenhanded might be a better description, but either way, he hardly had the personality you'd expect from someone in his profession.

Where Soul would expect a pimp to be intimidating, gangster and somewhat lewd, Lord Death was more like a relaxed, friendly version of his son, mannerly and sleek in his all-black ensemble. He wasn't decked out with any gaudy jewelry, either - the only pimp-cliche in his outfit was a tall, elaborate black hat with fur around the brim; its top, though, tapered off into a narrow, zigzagging strip of fabric, giving him more the appearance of a witch than a pimp. Under it, in the shadow of a black hood, a mask in the shape of a skull was seated over the man's face, concealing his features. Soul could only see two keen golden eyes peering back at him through it, which were themselves sometimes in shadow.

Despite the somewhat grim clothing, 'Lord Death' - who took his name from the aesthetic he had crafted, as well as from the reputation that whomever crossed him or his workers would find himself in the morgue - wasn't particularly frightening at all. He rose and welcomed Soul in with a cheerful "Heya!", and patted the boy on the shoulder casually.

"Care for a cookie?" the pimp offered, pushing a plate of pink-tinted confections across the table toward Soul. "It's no good to talk serious matters on an empty stomach!"

"I'm fine, thanks," declined Soul somewhat stiffly, getting the feeling that Kid would somehow _know_ if he got too informal. He had come to see his boss' boss under what seemed like a rather official summons, too. That didn't exactly put him in the mood for eating.

Lord Death hummed in a disappointed-sounding tone, but brushed the cookies aside, since he presumably couldn't eat with the mask on, and folded his hands atop the highly polished mahogany desk. "I assume you have some idea why I wanted to speak with you?"

"...Yeah." Soul kicked sullenly at the carpet. "I fucked up, sorry."

His boss tilted his hat-crowned head quizzically. "That's not it."

Surprised, Soul raised his head in confusion. "You're not pissed that I basically let him steal - uh, steal business from you?"

"Mm, I don't see it that way," said Lord Death, tapping his chin. "It's more the fact that he did something rather inexcusable to you. I wanted to see that you were all right." There was a pause, while he poured a cup of tea for Soul, and then he continued lightly, "And of course I was hoping you could describe the person who did it, so that we can find him and administer the appropriate punishment!"

The cheerful way he said such a thing chilled Soul's bones a little, and he felt distinctly glad that this particular leader of underground commerce was championing him.

"He didn't really have anything special about him, other than being a fuckin' weirdo..." the white-haired boy mumbled, turning his cup of tea back and forth. That much was true, though he also didn't want to think about the sick shit that was hiding behind the man's completely average face and clothes and stupid fucking average car. He was over it now, anyway, so what did his pimp need to go after the prick for? "Why're you so interested in catching this guy?" Soul asked, hoping it wasn't way too forward and out of line a way too address his boss. Feeling a little bold, he added, "You know how it is. I'm a hooker. Fucked-up shit happens to us all the time."

"Well!" Lord Death blustered, "I'm protecting my business, of course! If my workers don't feel safe, no one will want to work!" The man picked up his tea and lifted his mask fractionally to take a long, thoughtful sip. "More importantly, you're around my son's age, aren't you?"

Soul nodded, not seeing where the pimp was going with this. That was another frustrating thing about Lord Death - he never got straight to the point about anything.

The teacup clinked against its saucer, and Lord Death's eyes turned sharp behind the eyeholes of his mask. "Someone who would do that sort of thing to a child shouldn't be walking the streets. _That_ is why I have taken such a personal interest in this incident, Soul Evans." Then, in a flash, the bubbly, affable manner was back. "Would you like another cookie, Soul? They're imported, you know!"

"I couldn't tell you much. He had short brown hair, pretty built, dressed like a douchebag. That could be pretty much anybody." The words tumbled out in a blur, Soul not caring to linger too much on any of them. He knew it wouldn't be helpful, but it was really hopeless

Lord Death 'hmmmed' again thoughtfully. "Do you remember the name of the hotel you were at?"

"It was a Marriott, somewhere in west downtown. Black Star could give you the address - he came to pick me up."

"You don't seem very interested in helping me, Soul," the pimp noted without changing his friendly tone. "It would help some of your friends, too, you know."

Soul bit back a sarcastic retort. "I don't have a lot of those. Sir."

With a sigh, Lord Death pushed back his chair. "You don't need to call me 'sir'. I'm not just your boss - we should be friends, too, don't you think? As a friend, I hope you'll let me know if you think of anything else."

"Right. I can go?"

"Of course. But take another cookie with you. You look like you don't get enough to eat."

Grudgingly, Soul complied, although he thought the whole 'I want to be your friend' fatherly line of BS was a bit cheesy mixed in with all the talk about business and protecting his interests. "Thanks," he mumbled, and shuffled out into the waiting area.

True to form, Black Star had hung around, and was currently occupied with hitting on the severe-looking woman who served as Lord Death's secretary. She was studiously ignoring all of his come-ons, not that Black Star seemed to notice. Soul retrieved his friend, since he felt a bit sorry for the lady. The full brunt of Black Star's attention was a spotlight too intense for anyone to bear for an extended period of time, which probably explained a lot about why the good-looking young man was still bafflingly single.

"Tell her the address of that hotel, and then let's get out of here," he muttered, checking his cellphone. 1:37 pm - still plenty of time to get changed and fancied up before he headed down for his evening rounds.

"We could go back to my place - what's that face? I ain't talkin' about funny business, I'm not an _idiot _- and hang out. You wanna shoot some hoops or somethin'?

Soul pulled a face. "Can't. Just give her the address, all right? I'll wait down by the car."

"You're _working_ tonight?" the other boy gawked. "After that?"

"Yeah. Tomorrow's my day off, I'll live."

Still looking disapproving, Black Star tossed his keys to Soul and turned back to the desk with a shrug of his shoulders. Soul headed for the elevator, then changed his mind and took the stairs. An enclosed space wasn't where he wanted to be right now. Lord Death's personal offices were on the 16th floor, one from the top, so it was a long walk down. He reached the bottom flight just as the lobby elevator dinged, and Soul almost walked head-first into the couple who came out of it.

"Sorry," he muttered without looking up. Perfume caught his nose, though, and he was immediately hit by a wave of nostalgia - he couldn't place what made the scent so familiar, but it was light and sweet, and made him feel instantly calmer. Instinctively, he glanced around for the source of the smell, and his eyes landed on the young woman he had just bumped into.

Soul wasn't one for being awestruck by beautiful women, had never been, but the girl had the prettiest eyes he'd ever seen, olive green and warm as though just waiting for an excuse to sparkle with laughter. They were still wide with surprise at having been run into, but she smiled politely and raised her hand in a placating gesture. Her fingers self-consciously straightened a few strands of straw-blonde bangs, lifting them out of her eyes; Soul's eyes caught on the soft curve of her smile and he felt sure he was blushing like a schoolboy. Shit, she was _gorgeous_. Although her face itself was a little plain, there was something about her expression that radiated distilled brilliance, and it made her average features shine as though she belonged on the cover of a magazine - a classy one, too.

"No worries," the girl assured him, before turning back to her escort. Soul watched them go, memorizing the way her summery white dress turned see-through around the edges and illuminated the slim, almost boyish lines of her figure. Something about her made him think of a little girl playing dress-up in her mother's clothes, and it was beyond endearing, it was captivating. He realized he had actually forgotten to breathe.

Black Star's voice in his ear brought him crashing back to reality a moment later. "Earth to Soul! Yo, you take a trip to the Bahamas there for a second, bro?" he trumpeted loudly, cackling and slapping his friend on the back. Eventually he followed Soul's line of sight to the girl and young man disappearing through the door, and raised his eyebrows pointedly.

"And _that_ is the difference between sixty dollars an hour and six _hundred_," he sighed, patting Soul's shoulder.

Then he recognized the look clouding Soul's usually indifferent expression. "Oh no. Don't even think about it. No, man. Just no," he laughed nervously when he saw who Soul was staring at. "That's Spirit's daughter. You know, the boss' top guy? The one you don't mess with?"

"You know her?" Soul asked, still staring at the spot where she'd been standing a moment ago, fumbling with her purse.

"Everybody who makes it above 11th Street knows her, man. Hell, she's probably almost as well known as _me_, though she's not as awesome - but that's sayin' a lot."

Barely registering any of what he was hearing, Soul turned to his friend. "What's her name?" he asked, praying for his voice to sound just vaguely curious and not so sharp and desperate.

Black Star snorted derisively. "I'm tellin' you, forget her. She's way out of your league, and besides, she's a professional, like us. It's not like you could date her. If I hawked my wheels I couldn't afford an hour of _talkin' _with her."

"Come on, man," Soul snapped. "It's not like Lord Death is gonna have you tossed in the river just for telling me a name."

"Her dad might," the other retorted, laughing loudly, although he sounded completely serious otherwise.

"I'm not gonna stalk her, I'm just curious!"

"She's bad news," insisted Black Star, and he crossed his arms. "I'm not helpin' you get yourself mixed up in sketchy shit."

Soul had to laugh at the absurdity of that. They were here at all because he had gotten raped, more or less, which was just a fucking occupational hazard, because he was a goddamn _prostitute_. As far as 'sketchy shit' went, he was knee-deep in it. Everything he owned reeked.

"I'll give you a lift home, and hey, I can hook you up with some pretty hot babes who'll put that chick right out of your mind. Being me, I know some real lookers."

Black Star elbowed Soul in the ribs suggestively, but his friend just shrugged him off. He wasn't in the mood for Black Star's famously unclassy hook-ups. At the moment, what he really needed was to be distracted, and work would be a good distraction, for a few hours at least.

"I'll pass on the babes, but the ride sounds good. I drive, though." He stuck his hand out for the keys. After raising his eyebrows incredulously, Black Star relented and dropped his keychain into Soul's outstretched fingers.

"All right, but just this once! You scratch her, I'll end you," he reminded Soul grimly.

"Yeah, yeah - you just sit sidekick and let me handle the rest."

* * *

><p>Maybe the one perk of working for Lord Death, other than the fact that it was pretty much guaranteed nobody would fuck with you in any serious way, was that the guy knew how to throw one hell of a party. There were drugs in pretty much any combination you could imagine, food you didn't have to pay for, and most important of all, in Soul's opinion, the music fucking <em>rocked<em>.

He was letting himself be moved by a beat that throbbed loudly from his head down to his toes, working its way into his very soul, when he noticed someone sitting off to the sidelines, hands in his lap, posture every kind of wrong for the situation. The women dancing in front of him moved aside for a moment, and he got a second look. That pink hair looked strangely familiar. After a moment, he placed it: the weird pink-haired guy from Kid's office. Apparently he'd settled in enough already to garner an invite to one of Lord Death's parties, which wasn't something to scoff at. Not just every third-rate whore got cleared for attendance, even though that was what Soul had pegged the kid as based on first impressions.

There was something sitting on the table in front of the boy, a long cylindrical object Soul couldn't make out well enough in the low light, except that it caught the colorful strobe lights and glinted brightly. It might have been a pipe, or a pen, or something else; Soul was too far away to be sure. As he watched, a larger man in a nice suit - too fancy to be one of the regular attendees, or a bouncer - came and took a seat next to the boy, laying a familiar hand over his shoulders that caused pink-hair's posture to stiffen even more until it looked physically painful. The man said something, laughed, and picked up whatever was on the table.

Some clear fluid shot out of the glinting cylinder, and through the haze of heavy beat pummeling his brain and pot clouding his senses, Soul now knew immediately what it was: drugs. The fucked-up shit you weren't supposed to touch if you ever wanted to own yourself again.

He thought about going over, telling the guy to lay off the kid who obviously wasn't into it and in fact looked kind of scared, but his reactions were muddled and slow. There were people in his way. Finally Soul started to move, shouldering past the two women who'd been in his line of sight earlier and were now busy kissing sloppily, but he was pretty sure he wouldn't make it there in time to do anything. Any second now the kid was going to let that guy stick the needle in his arm, and after that, there'd be no point in intervening.

Out of nowhere, a girl appeared at the edge of the couch, her face turned away from Soul. She looked similarly out of place in a white dress with a relatively conservative neckline and a ribbon around the waist; whoever had dressed her had obviously not known where she was intending to wear the outfit, because to Soul it looked more fit for a church picnic than for a rave.

She put both hands on the back of the couch, between the suit and pink-hair, and began shouting something at the larger man. Soul couldn't hear her over the music, but it didn't sound nice at all.

Normally he would have left it at that, but something about her was strangely fascinating. She had her hair tied up in two pigtails, more little-girl-sweet than stylish or sexy, and despite her tiny frame she was obviously not afraid of the hulking dealer at all. Soul watched the way her hips moved, entranced, as she came around from behind the couch and pulled the skittish young man up and then shoved him behind her. The girl's face was now visible from where Soul was standing, and he could see that she was scowling with features that would have been pretty while wearing a different expression. She looked so familiar...from where?

Unexpectedly, Soul's memory called up a whiff of perfume as a beautiful young woman stepped out of an elevator. He did a double-take, but now he was sure: it was the same girl. She carried herself the same way, feminine but confident, and her eyes were unmistakable, even from far away. Soul wanted to go over and put himself between her and the menacing suit, and he made it four steps before Black Star, who had returned from getting drinks he'd gone after ages ago, appeared at Soul's elbow.

"Hey, you know that chick at the bar? With the giant tits - which I'm pretty sure were real, by the way, and I'd know how to recognize a pair of fake knockers - and the tiiiiny waist? Yeah, she was totally checking me out, so I told her who I was, and - dude, are you even listening? Pay attention when I talk!"

Soul barely heard his friend launch into a lecture about how important the things he said were and how bitches _listened_ when the awesome Black Star deigned to speak to them, and Soul shouldn't think he was any different just because-

Then the girl seemed to be leaving, dragging pinkie toward the exit at a very determined pace, and any semblance of attention Soul had been paying Black Star was lost.

"I'll catch you later, man," he murmured, clapping the other boy on the shoulder.

"Hey!" shouted Black Star at top volume. "Where're you goin'?"

Soul jerked his head at the girl, motioning for Black Star not to follow him. His friend nearly choked when he saw who Soul was gesturing to.

"No, bro! You're fuckin' crazy! I told you she's _bad news_!"

Impishly, Soul pantomimed that he couldn't hear, and slipped through a gap in the seething crowd of dancers toward the exit where the girl and her pink-haired friend had disappeared. The door opened onto a long hallway, and when Soul followed it, he found himself at a door to the outside of the club. He pushed it open, but there was no one to be seen.

Then, to his left, he caught a flash of blueish white, illuminated in the moonlight. There was the girl, though pink-hair was nowhere in sight, with her arms wrapped around herself and shivering in the night air.

"Hey," he said quietly; her face was turned away, and he didn't want to startle her.

She jumped a little anyway, but then when she saw it was only a single boy her own age, she smiled uncertainly at him. "Hi," the girl replied, tilting her head. "Have we met?"

"Yeah, actually. Sort of."

"What's that supposed to mean?" she laughed.

"We've bumped into each other before. Uh, I saw what you did for that kid back in there - you're pretty brave, huh?"

The girl shook her head, still smiling in a bemused way, and wrapped the end of one pigtail around her finger. "I don't know if I'd call doing the right thing 'brave'. Somebody had to do it, after all."

"Where'd he go?" Soul asked, scuffing at the pavement. "Your friend."

"He went home, I think. Chrona has a hard time being around people. I'm sort of the only one who talks to him." She ducked her head. "It's kind of sad, really."

Soul nodded. Suddenly the pink-haired boy seemed like more of a real person, not just a stranger with a weird look and weird clothes. Lonely, stuck in an unfamiliar city without friends - yeah, Soul could relate to that. "Yeah," he agreed.

They stood in silence a few moments, unsure how to continue the conversation that had just sprouted up from nowhere, regarding each other as strangers and wanting to bridge the gap but not knowing how. Finally, Soul remembered how cold the girl had looked when he first saw her standing there, and he shrugged off his jacket belatedly, holding it out to her in one hand like a handshake.

"Here. You're cold, right?"

She smiled brightly, took the jacket in both hands. "Freezing, actually." When she pulled it on over her narrow shoulders, the fabric seemed to envelop her completely. Soul noticed there wasn't much to her, period: she didn't have much going on in the chest department, or her hips, really. Yet somehow she managed to look completely girlish, standing there with his too-broad jacket slipping off her shoulders. "Thank you."

"Sure."

"...I'm Maka," she offered, after a beat, extending one gloved hand out from underneath Soul's coat.

His breath stuttered. So now she had a name. And she had offered it to him herself. In his mouth, he turned the syllables over slowly. "Soul," he replied, smoothly as he could. They shook hands, a brief, firm grasp of their fingers.

"I like your name, Soul." This time her smile was more like a grin, honest and cheeky and not the least bit polished.

"Thanks."

"And your jacket is warm." She was cuddled into it like a blanket now, with one side of the collar turned up and her face pressed into it as though trying to find its scent.

"You wanna go back inside?" Soul asked awkwardly, not sure how to act around her. She seemed so casual and approachable, like just any other relatively pretty girl his age, but the whole impression he'd gotten was that he'd get his balls ripped off if he so much as said a word to her. Hell, he'd done more than that already - if anyone came up, this would look pretty bad, her wearing his jacket and all. He decided he didn't really care. "It'd be a shame to miss the party, the DJ's working hard tonight."

To his surprise, Maka shook her head, staring up at the night sky that was peppered with stars barely visible through a haze of city light pollution. "I don't really like loud music and dancing. Plus I'm sort of...technically not supposed to be here." She peeked sideways at him with a mischievous glitter in her eyes, as if to gauge his reaction. "My dad doesn't like me coming to things like this. But Chrona went, so I sort of had to. I guess it's a good thing I did."

"How'd you get in without an invite?"

She shrugged. Soul was about to ask her whether she'd come again, if he asked her, but just then the sound of a car squealing to a stop made them both jump.

"Maka! _Makaaa!_" A man's voice shouted her name at top volume. Maka quickly slipped out of the jacket and handed it back to Soul, much less gracefully than she had accepted it. She leaned down and struggled into a pair of treacherous-looking high heels - Soul hadn't even noticed it, but she'd been standing barefoot in the grass the whole time they were talking.

"I have to go," she said quickly, straightening her dress and then taking off at a run toward the side of the building where the shouts had come from. Whoever it was was still calling for her. As she ran, she called back over her shoulder with a wave, "It was nice meeting you, Soul!"

"Wait - !"

He took off after her, panicking with the feeling that he might never happen to bump into the unusual girl again. By the time he rounded the corner, however, slightly winded with the burst of speed he'd put on and still dangling his jacket from one fist, all he saw was the white blur of her foot disappearing into a sleek black car. A red-headed man in an expensive-looking fur-trimmed jacket was closing the door for her, and on instinct, Soul ducked back around the corner before the man turned in his direction. He pressed himself against the rough stone facade, wondering why he didn't ask for her phone number, or a last name, or _something_. She probably wouldn't have given it to him anyway, but at least he would have tried. Now he was just left with yet another thing he had failed to do right, to add onto an ever-growing list.


End file.
